UN agency UNESCO establishes a professorship in collaboration with Stockholm University

The United Nation agency UNESCO decides to establish a so-called UNESCO Chair in collaboration with Stockholm University. Professor Love Ekenberg at the Department of Computer and Systems Sciences is appointed to this Chair for developing a model for large-scale higher education in Southern Africa Development Community countries (SADC).

Love Ekenberg explains that Sub-Saharan Africa and other regions are poised to take tremendous economic and social strides forward, as the potential benefits of a dividend are strong. However, the gains are neither automatic nor guaranteed and we need to invest in human capital and education so that it can play its central role with efficiency – not just with regard to economic growth, but also as the promoter of democratic freedoms. Political and related freedoms, where wide access to higher education can begin to offer are fundamental to real social and economic change.

- On a macro level, I will look at challenges that deal with higher education in general and universities as a societal segment. On a meso level, I will focus on challenges pertaining to universities themselves and how they are run from an educational and organizational view.

- The globalization is one of the key challenges for higher education in the future, which in turn leads to the need to rethink how universities teach its students in a networked world. In essence, the challenge is to create global education that functions on a local level and this project will look at these challenges from various perspectives, Love Ekenberg says.